Historic and recent achievements of the Dark & Light Blind Care Foundation

Extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering
Especially in developing countries, it is a major problem to be blind or visually impaired. Blind people are often disadvantaged and do not get the same chances as others. They often do not have the chance to undergo surgery if needed, they are not educated about ways to prevent blindness, they do not go to school and often are not able to support their families. These problem areas are all working areas of Dark & Light Blind Care. We really want to improve the life of suffering people.

Established record of achievement

26 Years of working for the blind
Dark & Light was founded by Dr. Martien Cozijnsen and his wife Jenny in the Netherlands, in 1982. This small 'family foundation' has grown to become a professional foundation that has achieved a place in the world of aid for visually impaired. It was the Biblical mission that drove the founders and is still the source of inspiration and basis for all activities of the foundation.

From a small foundation to a grownup organisation
From this source of inspiration, Dark & Light Blind Care aims specifically to assist blind and visually impaired children and adults by means of projects that structurally improve their independence. The Dark & Light Blind Care Foundation has achieved a worthwhile place in the world of aid for visually impaired people after 26 years of hard work and efforts by a lot of people. Looking back, you can fairly say that the work really has had an impact on people’s lives in many countries.

Recent achievements
Right now, Dark & Light Blind Care is the largest organisation in the Netherlands in helping visually impaired people in developing countries. Some years ago, we have decided to broaden our target group. We now work with persons with any kind of disability, as long as it benefits our core target group, the visually impaired. For example, through inclusive education – which focuses on all children with a disability (and broader) – we support the inclusion of visually impaired children as well. The same applies to our vocational training and income programs, HIV-Aids activities and lobby activities.

Innovation in program design

Inclusive education
A great example of innovation in program design of Dark & Light Blind Care are the projects on Inclusive Education. In general, the definition of Inclusive Education can be described as follows: ‘It means including children with special needs in regular education with the necessary support to meet the child’s unique individual needs in order to maximise their full potential’. The most important benefit of Inclusive Education is that more children can go to school.

Inclusive Education has become a subject of great interest for Dark and Light Blind Care in recent years. We are providing assistance to projects in different countries to facilitate education for children with visual impairments in an inclusive environment. In 2007, the support of Dark & Light Blind Care resulted in more than 2700 visually impaired children going to school, of which more than 2400 went to Integrated Schools. This is a doubling in relation to the number in 2006.

Dark and Light Blind Care has created a document with available models on Inclusive Education and some useful tools.

Countries in which Inclusive Education Projects (supported by Dark & Light Blind Care) are now running: Afghanistan (with SERVE), Bangladesh (with Centre for Disability in Development), and Sudan (two projects with Church and Development, and Sudan Education & Development Agency).

HIV-Aids
Another topic we have stepped in is HIV-Aids. In 2007 we have developed a policy paper on the inclusion of people with a disability in HIV-Aids programs. People with a disability are more vulnerable and more likely to get infected with HIV, due to lack of education, misperceptions, risks of abuse. We have started a pilot project with a network of organisations working for people with a disability in Ethiopia. This project will reach out to persons with a disability to provide them with education, testing, treatment and care. The next step will be the inclusion of people with a disability in mainstream HIV-Aids programs.

Impact
The interventions supported by Dark & Light have a high impact:

• evaluations of our income generating programs have proved that the majority of the target group is able to contribute to the family income after rehabilitation and training.
• the clients in the rehabilitation programs have greater mobility and are more active in society.
• the education programs show that children with disabilities who previously did not have access to school are now able to complete their education. Sometimes these children are in the performance top of their class, despite their disability.
• research has proved that persons who have had a cataract operation have a higher quality of life and a higher income than before the operation.
• the activities make a measurable contribution towards reaching the millennium development goals on poverty reduction, education, gender equality and HIV-Aids. Without the inclusion of disabled persons these goals can not be reached at all.